social assistance

On July 4, 2011 Community Development Halton and Poverty Free Halton, at the invitation of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, met with Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh, Commissioners of the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario. Halton and its municipalities rarely receive visits from commissions appointed to investigate social issues. As John Versluis, co-chair of Poverty Free Halton commented: “Poverty in Halton is often hidden, buried under the veneer of affluence and well-being.” He continued emphasizing that “the gap between the annual income of a family of four on social assistance and that of the median Halton family income is $5,793 per month or approximately $69,230 per year. These people live in different worlds, making bridges of compassion and understanding difficult to build.”

Rishia Burke and Jen Gerrard of Community Development Halton told the Commissioners that they, and others from their research team, had crossed the Region talking with people living in poverty. The many stories of people painfully showed that the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, recreation and the opportunity to belong to their community were outside of the reach of those in poverty and especially those on social assistance who live in ‘deep poverty’. Rishia Burke added: “Mental health was always an underlying theme during community conversations. Poor people live under tremendous stress. They do not have enough money to live and face choices between housing or food. Every day they face the stresses of surviving.” Jen Gerrard told the Commissioners; “Programs and services should respect the dignity of people. They should not feel ‘less’ as a result of asking for assistance to meet basic needs.”

As the conversation moved on to social assistance reform, Joey Edwardh of Community Development Halton pointed out that the dialogue and, ultimately, the recommendations for change, must be evidence-based. She observed: “Today, there is no evidence-based process for determining social assistance rates and as a result the benefits have no relation to the cost of living in a community”. She also pointed out that reform of social assistance needs to be based on a new paradigm that not only meets human needs but also respects the dignity of people. She emphasized: “This framework would move beyond that of the ‘welfare wall’ which implies that the benefits of those on social assistance must be kept to a certain level, inadequate, insufficient and punitive, to avoid a disincentive to enter the labour force.” The Commissioners thanked the delegation for their thoughtful and insightful presentation and in the public meeting that followed recognized the recommendation for a paradigm shift.

Liveable Benefits, Living Wage Jobs, Transparent Rules and Government Support

About 150 people participated in the community consultation session with Commissioners Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh in Hamilton on Monday, July 4.

Participant contributions fell into several major theme areas.

Adequate Benefits and Wages above Poverty Line

The need for a system such as an independent expert panel to determine social assistance rates based on evidence of the real cost of living in the community was repeated often through the session. Recipients also need access to emergency funds for things such as transportation, medication, and coverage of dental, optometry and other important health-related services. Access to affordable housing in all areas of the city is also key to escaping poverty.

There should be an end to precarious employment and assurance of a living wage that enables workers to live above the poverty line. Those moving off of social assistance into the labour market should not be subject to income claw-backs and should be allowed a sustained income at the living wage level for a period of time before other social assistance benefits are suspended to ensure a stable and lasting transition.

Employment Supports

There is a need for real job training, not sporadic short-term courses. Employment services should be matched with employers that provide real work experience. Job training must be related to actual existing jobs in the labour market. The labour market, however, must ensure decent jobs which pay a living wage. Better use of technology to help more people with disabilities be successful in employment.

Clear and Transparent Rules

Both OW/ODSP caseworkers and recipients are frustrated by complex, punitive and nit-picking rules, which need to be simplified and made more transparent, flexible and responsive to individual needs and situations. Better staff training is needed to improve communication between workers and recipients and a role for experienced recipients should be considered to help new recipients navigate the system. Eligibility barriers for new applicants should be reduced, such as low asset thresholds, which just make it harder to get out of poverty even if one gets off of assistance.

Future of Social Assistance

Many participants asked that a universal program be established such as the guaranteed annual income and that current income supports be better integrated. Income supports systems should meet community living needs for food, housing and health. The federal, provincial and municipal governments need to work together on this and also ensure universal healthcare coverage (dental, vision). Corporations should be contributing more through fair taxation.

It is important to overcome discrimination and stigmatization of social assistance recipients, which means presenting a unified position to the public on the need for and rightness of a social assistance system that is effective in meeting the needs of people not able to be in the labour market for whatever reason in the short- or long-term.

Government’s Role

Government must understand that minor tweaks will not work. There is a need for a focused uncomfortable discussion about what needs to be changed. Government has a role to play in communicating this in a way to the public that helps build and maintain support.

Commissioners Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh were in Niagara Region on Tuesday, July 5 and met with representatives of community agencies, social assistance advocacy groups, a Regional Niagara Councilor and Regional Community Services Staff in the morning. They then had lunch with a small group of social assistance recipients for their input into the issue. In the afternoon they met with Regional OW caseworkers.

In the morning, the Commissioners were urged to take “bold action” in their reform proposals and to release an interim report before the provincial election to help bring poverty into a stronger public and political consciousness. The Commissioners resisted the notion indicating that they would “engage politicians but not make pronouncements.” The Commissioners expressed an interest in finding some kind of “broad consensus” around which they could “coalesce” to pass on to the government.

Community participants told of the economic hardships that people are experiencing in Niagara leaving many who had always worked now in desperate living conditions. They reported on the “cycle” of moving back and forth between the labour market and social assistance because of the low paying and precarious nature of the jobs that are available. Regional social services staff reported the heavy pressures under which they work with caseloads higher than the provincial average.

The need for more adequate benefit levels for people on social assistance was clearly stated, although the Commissioners expressed some concern about fairness to working poor people if social assistance recipients were seen to get benefits not available to them. All of which only once again points to the importance of linking a more adequate and improved social assistance system to labour market policies and programs that ensure decent-paying jobs and good employment standards.

Although the Commissioners’ meeting with social assistance recipients was private, it was reported to be a very intense and emotional conversation, which the Commissioners indicated was very valuable to their purpose.

Thanks to Gracia Janes, Chair of the Social Assistance Reform Network of Niagara for providing preliminary and very brief notes for this report. More detailed notes of the morning meeting were taken by Regional Niagara staff and will be available shortly.

WELLAND – As we sat in a room in the MacBain Centre in Niagara Falls, a dramatic analogy of poverty played out around us. Marvyn Novick and Peter Clutterbuck from the Social Planning Network of Ontario spoke to us on behalf of Poverty Free Ontario, and a strange thing happened.

The lights, set up with environmental conservation in mind, were to go out at set intervals after detecting no movement in the room. This happened several times, and as a result the listeners of the presentation had to perform wild gesticulations so that the light would return.

Watching this frantic communication to the great motion sensor in the sky, left me with a profound feeling.

This is what poverty felt like. The lights of the world had gone out, and one is left frantically flailing their arms in the darkness hoping someone will notice.

The only problem with this analogy is that poverty isn’t something that just happens. It’s caused by you and I: those that can afford to pay our rising bills, including HST, without complaint, who can afford niceties that we don’t really need, who struggle to come up with one or two cans when it comes to the annual food drive.

In order to ensure our own comfort, we have deliberately put those in poverty in the dark. It saves energy, money, resources if we just pretend that they’re no longer in the room, and we shut out the lights.

We sing a hymn by Shirley Erena Murray in our church, entitled Touch the Earth Lightly. In it, we are reminded at the dramatic impact we have upon this planet.

We who endanger, who create hunger, agents of death for all creatures that live

Whenever we sing those lines, I’m left with an unmovable lump in my throat. The problem with poverty is not just a religious matter.

Athiests, agnostics, whatever flavour of religion satisfies your palate; each of us need to work together, if there is any hope of eliminating poverty. It doesn’t belong to any particular political party either. Poverty requires us to acknowledge the inherent worth of our neighbours. Especially the one you don’t get along with.

The presentation at the MacBain Centre laid the foundation for this discussion of poverty with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issued by the UN shortly after the Second World War. It was written and adopted to ensure one group of people do not mistreat, subjugate, or demean another group.

Yet that is exactly what is happening between those that exist both above and below the poverty line. We use language that refers to laziness and the pulling of bootstraps. We assume addiction and abuse. We claim squandered cheques and too much help and they won’t help themselves. Any words that can be used to lessen our collective guilt, we employ it. It lets us off the hook.

We feel better about ourselves. We sleep soundly at night, and what little we do about poverty, if any, seems grandiose.

According to recent statistics, we have seen an increase from 11% to 13% of Ontarians existing in poverty, or in other terms, 1.7 million Ontarians are below the poverty line, 400,000 of whom are children. Myths of poverty aside, one-third of those 400,000 children actually come from families where parents had full-time work.

Gone are the beliefs that having a “good job” met all your needs. Gone is the belief that only the uneducated cash cheques from Ontario Works or ODSP. (In fact 80% of those below the poverty line graduated high school, and 40% have some post secondary education). Families are now required to have two incomes at a minimum, leaving many to split time between multiple places of employment, just to break even. When we hear poverty, it often comes with the more heartstring- pulling adjective of child poverty.

While it is admirable to seek to improve the lives of children in need, we cannot forget that there are still more than one million adults and seniors that face each and every day without the basic needs for life.

At Central United, as well as other locations around our city, meals are served, by local organizations and churches. The visible poor aren’t often in front of our eyes, like the larger centres of Toronto, or Ottawa, but Welland struggles just the same. While there are familiar faces that come each and every meal, a certain percent of the group is always new.

We’re never sure what led them to our table that month, as the pain of poverty prevents many from sharing the difficult journey they’ve endured. We only know that for one brief moment, judgment is checked at the door, people are fed, and hope is shared.

If you’re like me, you wonder what you can do at all when it comes to the great chasm of poverty. In that moment, please realize that doing something is better than doing nothing at all. Know that there is a provincial election and ensure each of the candidates offer their party’s plan on how to combat poverty. Contribute to a food bank more than once a year.

Get the figures on how much on average those in poverty have for food per month and try surviving (and then imagine what a $100 a month healthy food supplement might do to your diet). Speak to those at the Hope Centre or other institutions around Welland that work to fight not just the symptoms of poverty, but the root causes. And if you’re still unsure where to start, may these words strengthen your resolve.

They were written by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw and attributed to Bishop Oscar Romero who ministered to the people of El Salvador, and offered hope during hopeless times.

WINDSOR – The Windsor Star reports that Commissioner Frances Lankin addressed several critical issues about social assistance reform as she and Dr. Munir Sheikh launched their community consultations in Windsor yesterday.

Although indicating that the Commission would have to make recommendations to simplify a rule-bound social assistance system, Commissioner Lankin also pointed out that there is no rationale for how OW and ODSP benefit rates are set. The WindsorStar reports that Commissioner Lankin said, “It’s not rational . . . It’s not related to how much it may cost for shelter, healthy meals, clothing.”

She also challenged the “urban myth” that people can be better off receiving social assistance than working. Citing the rising numbers of working poor people, she expressed concern about the growing numbers of low-paying and part-time jobs.

The Windsor Star reports that Commissioner Lankin “said government cuts to welfare rates over the last two decades were made to encourage people to seek jobs. However, with the job market offering lower paying jobs, and families living below the poverty line, we may now be in a ‘race to the bottom.’ ”

Poverty Free Ontario urges the Commissioners to propose a clear strategy for raising benefit levels to enable people on social assistance to live with health and dignity and to address the poor quality labour market by recommending an increase of the minimum wage over a three-year period that will bring the incomes of earners working full-year, full-time above the poverty line.

Poverty Free Ontario plans to post local reports on the Windsor community consultations on Thursday, June 30.

Commissioners Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh start their consultation visits this week. Their current schedule is as follows:

Windsor – June 28

London – June 29

Hamilton – July 4

Niagara – July 5

Toronto – July 8, 14, 15

Kingston – July 12 (tentative)

Peterborough – July 13

Thunder Bay – July 20‐21 (tentative)

Peel – July 25

Timmins – July 26

Ottawa – July 27

The Discussion Paper and Workbook for the community consultations on the Social Assistance Review are available at www.socialassistancereview.ca. Communities not on the Commissioners’ schedule are invited to set up their own community “conversations” on the Review and to submit the results to the Commissioners.

Poverty Free Ontario also encourages communities to conduct their own discussions in July-August. In setting dates, we recommend that you avoid the dates on the Commissioners’ current schedule and invite the Commissioners’ attendance even though right now they are committed only to the above community visits.

Asking the Right Questions

In the Discussion Paper and Workbook, the Commissioners interpret their terms of reference as making “recommendations that will enable the government to:

Place reasonable expectations on people receiving social assistance to participate in employment, treatment, or rehabilitation and to provide them with supports to do so;

Establish an appropriate benefit structure that reduces barriers and helps people find employment;

Simplify income and asset rules to improve equity and make it easier to understand and administer social assistance;

Ensure the long‐term viability of the social assistance system; and

Define Ontario’s position in relation to the federal and municipal governments in providing income security for Ontarians.” (Workbook, pp. 8-9)

The Review’s Workbook goes on to ask a series of questions under reach of the preceding areas. But, at the end of each section, the Commissioners also invite participants to identify “any issues we have missed or misunderstood.” This PFO Bulletin offers some guidance to communities on the Commissioners’ line of inquiry and important additional questions central to the Commissioners’ task.

Under the heading “Reasonable Expectations and Necessary Supports for Employment”, the Workbook asks five questions (p. 11) related to:

meeting the needs of employers and connecting social assistance recipients with employers;

developing the skills of social assistance recipients to better meet employers’ needs

making employment services more effective and accessible;

reducing multiple barriers to employment for recipients; and

connecting people with disabilities better to employment services.

People on social assistance and low income working people have consistently met their personal responsibilities with respect to taking employment:

In 2004, 60% of parents and single adults living in poverty were employed but with insufficient earnings to live above poverty.

One‐third of all Ontario children living in poverty in 2008 were in families with full‐time, full‐year hours of work (LICO-Before Tax).

In terms of education, 80% of low income parents in Canada had completed high school, 50% had some post‐secondary education (2004) and 45% of the unemployed in Canada had completed post‐secondary education studies (2010).

Their main problem is a low wage job market where a single earner working full‐time, full‐year still falls $1,064 below the poverty line.

Poverty in Ontario is a structural issue. Even the Commissioners acknowledge that “questions around what work should pay” is another approach to income security (p. 4). Employment services for people on social assistance, however, will help only if the labour market provides decent work with adequate ages and benefits to enable people to escape and stay out of poverty.

The Commissioners state that the adequacy of wages in the labour market “is outside the mandate of our review” (p. 4). Yet, any reforms proposed to the social assistance system, even improved employment services and supports, will depend on a labour market that provides jobs that sustain individuals and families above poverty.

Poverty Free Ontario recommends that the Ontario Government build on its previous positive action of raising the minimum wage in 75 cent increments over three years to reach $10.25/hour in 2010 by a second set of three annual 75 cent increases starting in March 2012. This would bring the basic minimum wage to $12.15/hour in 2014 and, indexed annually thereafter, would ensure that an earner working full‐year, full‐time would have an income 10% above poverty.

Poverty Free Ontario encourages participants in the community consultations to give the Commissioners permission to address the larger structural labour market issue in their proposals for serious social assistance reform. Let the Commissioners report out on all that they heard, whether within or outside their interpretation of their mandate.

Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:

Will you report concerns expressed in the community that the success of social assistance reform and investment in employment services to recipients will depend on labour market policies that provide jobs with adequate wages to ensure earners live above the poverty line?

Further, will you point out in your report that Government action to increase gradually the minimum wage since 2008 has started to bring low wage workers out of poverty and should be completed by three additional annual 75 cent increases starting in 2012 that would bring all Ontario earners working full‐year, full‐time above the poverty line by 2014?

Benefit Levels that End “Deep Poverty”

designing benefits that deal with the trade-off between ensuring adequate income support and ensuring that people are better off working;

new benefits that could be provided to all low income individuals and families;

improving social assistance by changing asset limits and exemptions; and

designing and delivering benefits for people with disabilities

The Workbook suggests that there are trade‐offs to be made “between ensuring adequate income support” through social assistance and “ensuring that people are better off working” (p. 4). Unfortunately, this perpetuates the myth of the “welfare wall”, which holds that benefit levels approaching adequacy act as a disincentive to employment for recipients and is unfair to low wage working people.

There is no evidence that social assistance recipients who can work avoid employment in order to retain their benefits. As noted earlier, the main barrier to becoming “better off working” is the quality of jobs at the low end of the labour market, which both denies opportunity for social assistance recipients to et a firm foothold in sustaining employment and also keeps low wage working people in poverty.

Set Rates to End Deep Poverty. At current benefit levels, people receiving social assistance live in “deep poverty”, defined as having incomes below 80% of Ontario’s official poverty measure (Low Income Measure – After Tax, LIM-AT).

Poverty Line
(LIM-AT – 2008)*

Annual Income (2008)*

Basic Income Gap

Single Adult on OW

$18,582

$7,352

$11,230
(39.6% of LIM-AT)

Lone parent with one child on OW

$26,279

$16,683

$9,596
(63.5% of LIM-AT)

Single Adult on ODSP

$18,582

$12,647

$5,935
(68.1% of LIM-AT)

* Using comparable data for 2008 as the latest year for which Statistics Canada has published LIM-AT figures.

In terms of setting social assistance rates, Poverty Free Ontario urges the Commissioners to propose a comprehensive plan to end deep poverty by 2015.

Further, Poverty Free Ontario believes that the Commissioners have a unique opportunity well before their final report date of June 2012 to address the serious hardship and hunger that almost 600,000 recipients are currently experiencing by calling for the immediate addition of a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement to the Basic Needs Allowance for all adults receiving OW or ODSP.

Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:

In your final report in June 2012, will you propose a comprehensive plan that would ensure no one receiving social assistance in Ontario is living in deep poverty by 2015

Will you issue an interim report or statement following your community consultations and prior to the provincial election that:

Expresses your intent to propose a comprehensive plan for social assistance reform to end deep poverty in Ontario by 2015?, and

Call for the immediate addition of a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement to the Basic Needs Allowance for all adults receiving OW or ODSP?

No Earnings Claw‐backs While Still in Poverty. In presentations and discussions in twenty communities between March and June 2011, Poverty Free Ontario consistently heard social assistance recipients express frustration at the low earnings exemption level before loss of benefits from employment earnings started and at the high rate (50%) of benefit loss for every dollar earned over the exemption limit. Participants enthusiastically supported the proposal that not one dollar of earnings should be clawed back through benefit reductions until an OW or ODSP recipient’s earnings reached the poverty line.

Benefits for People with Disabilities. Poverty Free Ontario supports the positions of the ODSP Action Coalition on benefit levels and employment expectations for people with disabilities.

Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:

Will you propose reforms recommending that no claw-backs or benefit reductions are applied against earned income for people on social assistance until they reach the LIM-AT applicable to their individual or family situation?

Caution on Potential New Housing Benefit for All Low Income People. The Discussion Paper indicates that one possible way to avoid treating social assistance recipients and low income workers inequitably is “to make some benefits available to all low income people, whether or not they are receiving social assistance.” (p. 4) Examples given include the Ontario Child Benefit and the National Child Benefit Supplement for low income parents.

Although not explicitly identified in the Workbook, it is expected that the Commissioners will explore community interest in a housing benefit for all low income people as a way to address the income support issue.

Poverty Free Ontario offers several important cautions on the notion of a housing benefit:

It is critical that a housing benefit for all low income people assure coverage for the portion of the high cost of housing that drains money away from the low income household’s budget for food and other necessities of life. It is generally accepted in Rent-Geared-to-Income provisions that households paying more than 30% of their gross incomes for housing require subsidy in order to meet all their costs for basic living necessities. Housing benefit proposals that Poverty Free Ontario has heard discussed suggest that the 30% threshold is being considered for families, but a 40% threshold is being considered for individuals, which again imposes an artificial divide between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. Further, housing benefit models under discussion do not necessarily provide full coverage for the amount over #0% or 40%, but only about three-quarters of the difference.

The introduction of a housing benefit must contribute significantly to moving people living on social assistance toward income adequacy for their overall necessities of life. Ontarians receiving social assistance are very familiar with claw‐backs on benefit programs applying to all persons on low income. Presumably, the Commissioners would recommend against a claw‐back for a housing benefit that is supposed to apply to both social assistance recipients and low income working people. Currently, however, a portion of the Basic Needs Allowance to social assistance recipients is designated for shelter costs. Unless, social assistance rates are also increased in the direction of adequacy for basic living needs, there is the risk that rates are also increased in the direction of adequacy for basic living needs, there is the risk that administration of a partial housing benefit will be offset with a loss or reduction in the shelter allowance portion of the OW and ODSP recipient’s overall benefit, leaving them only marginally better off.

Poverty Free Ontario recognizes that a housing benefit for social assistance recipients and low wage workers may well have a place in the overall income security reforms that the Commissioners will propose by June 2012. Under conditions where overall benefit levels bring social assistance recipients out of deep poverty and where minimum wage levels assure low income workers earn above the poverty line, a housing benefit can be an important complementary protection against variable high housing costs in communities across the province.

A full housing benefit is a complement to the core income of a low income individual or family, not a substitute for the basic income required to meet daily living requirements. It should be designed as a protection for household money for food and other necessities of life.

Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:

Should you propose a new housing benefit,:

will it be available to all low income individuals and families with housing costs above 30% of gross household income?

will it provide full or partial coverage of the difference between 30% of their housing costs and the actual costs of those in need?

will it reduce the shelter allowance portion of OW and ODSP recipients’ benefits?

Special-Purpose Benefits

The Commissioners will also seek input on eligibility for special-purpose benefits and inquire whether some may best be delivered outside the social assistance system. The Special Diet Allowance is one such benefit identified.

The Ontario Government’s 2010 budget proposed changes to the Special Diet Allowance (SDA) that threatened an important supplementary support to individuals and families with health-related dietary needs not adequately covered through existing benefits. Since an internal review of the SDA was completed, the eligibility process has been tightened up and the number of qualifying medically necessary conditions has been reduced significantly.

The Commissioners have a chance to serve the interests of OW and ODSP recipients in two ways through their Review:

Distinguish the issue adequacy in benefit levels in general that enable access to affordable and nutritious food for all recipients from support for recipients with special dietary requirements; and

Reinforce the importance of a supplementary Special Diet Allowance available fairly to recipients with medically necessary dietary requirements.

Clearly, the administration of a Special Diet Allowance in a way that would open its eligibility to low income working individuals and families would be beneficial in general to personal and community health.

Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:

Will you recommend that the Ontario Government retain and expand as required a Special Diet Allowance to ensure that OW and ODSP recipients and qualifying low income workers and working families will have access to food essential to medically prescribed special dietary requirements?

Federal and Provincial Jurisdictions in Income Security

The Commissioners also express the need for better integration of the federal and provincial provisions for income security in general. They point to the growing burden on social assistance as lower numbers of Ontario’s unemployed receive Employment Insurance. These are legitimate concerns and improved coordination and integration between the federal and provincial governments on income security issues are highly desirable.

Federal-provincial jurisdictional considerations and discussions for long-term income security reform should not, however, delay provincial action in the short and intermediate terms on the two clear areas of sole provincial responsibility:

Basic incomes through social assistance which ensure a life out of poverty for parents and adults with limited access to employment; and

Labour markets with decent work that enable full-time, full-year earners to live above poverty.

Poverty Free Ontario urges community participants to reinforce with the Commissioners the imperative that the Province of Ontario fulfills its obligations to both social assistance recipients and low income working people, regardless of the federal government’s position on income security.

Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:

Will you recommend action by the Ontario Government on social assistance reform and labour market policy regardless of any proposals or discussions with the federal government in the longer-term with respect to more integrated income security policy?

Conclusion

Poverty Free Ontario urges communities to affirm the opportunity that the Social Assistance Review Commissioners have not only to propose serious and comprehensive reforms to the social assistance system in Ontario, but also to make sure that the issue of poverty and poverty eradication is part of the policy debate in the upcoming provincial election. Currently, no political party is giving the issue of poverty any prominence at all in its party platform.

The Commissioners would best serve this issue with an interim report on their deliberations with the community by August or early September prior to the provincial election date of October 6.

On Thursday, June 9, Social Assistance Review Commissioners Frances Lankin and Dr. Munir Sheikh released the Discussion Paper and Workbook for their summer consultation on the Social Assistance Review and notice of the web site on which further information and updates will be posted www.socialassistancereview.ca.

The Commissioners will be making visits to eleven selected communities across Ontario for conversations and consultations on the Review and are encouraging community and individual input to the process until September 1, 2011. The release includes a guide to convening and conducting community conversations for the purposes of collecting ideas and suggestions for improving the social assistance system and overall income security reform and sending same to the Commissioners.

The Commissioners plan to issue an Options Paper in November for further input and consultation before formulating their recommendations over the winter and releasing their final report in June 2012.

Poverty Free Ontario on the Social Assistance Review Commission

Poverty Free Ontario will monitor the progress of the Commissioners’ Review. This Bulletin is a preliminary assessment. Poverty Free Ontario will have more to say on the social assumptions and policy directions that are guiding the Review and their prospective impacts on poverty eradication through subsequent Bulletins and its web site (www.povertyfreeontario.ca).

Since March, the Social Planning Network of Ontario has taken the Poverty Free Ontario initiative to eighteen communities across the province and has received an enthusiastic response to its analysis of the issues in social assistance reform and its proposals for ending deep poverty in Ontario by upgrading the social assistance system

Poverty Free Ontario promotes a two-track approach to social assistance reform calling for a first track of immediate implementation of the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement as the important initial step toward establishing adequate benefit levels for all adults on OW and ODSP. While this action is taken now, the second track of the longer-term review and reform process for upgrading social assistance should get underway.

Poverty Free Ontario calls on Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh to issue an interim report prior to the provincial election:

expressing their intent to propose a comprehensive plan for ending deep poverty in Ontario by 2015 so that no individual or family on OW or ODSP must live on incomes below 80% of LIM-AT (i.e. in “deep poverty” using Ontario’s official poverty line); and

recommending that the Ontario Government of whatever political make-up introduce the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement without waiting for the release of the Commissioners’ final report.

An interim report by the Commissioners in early September would help the community to make poverty eradication an issue during the provincial election campaign.

Applying the Poverty Free Ontario Lens to the Review’s Discussion Paper and Consultation

The Commissioners’ Discussion Paper and related materials are encouraging and helpful to serious social assistance reform in the following ways:

The Commissioners interpret their mandate as giving them “freedom to examine not only all aspects of social assistance, but to consider all other aspects of the overall income security system that may impinge upon social assistance outcomes.” (p. 2). This could be consistent with Poverty Free Ontario’s proposed two-track approach. One important aspect of the current social assistance system requiring immediate action is the intolerable inadequacy of benefit levels to recipients.

The Commissioners express a commitment “to provide adequate income security to those who cannot work” (p. 2).

The Commissioners acknowledge that a main barrier to social assistance recipients successfully moving into employment is the lack of other essential supports such as stable housing, childcare, and the costs of medical supports such as prescription drugs.

The Commissioners address the issue of supporting employment opportunities for persons with disabilities, indicating some sensitivity to the important balance between opportunity for meaningful work and the security of adequate income support regardless of employment status.

The Commissioners suggest that “opportunity planning” or “intensive case management” models would be more supportive to better outcomes for people on social assistance. This would indicate the prospect of workers in the system being freed of the burden of applying heavy and punitive monitoring practices, which would be beneficial both to the experience of social assistance recipients with the system and to the job satisfaction of workers in the system.

The Commissioners show a determination to address the complexity and inconsistent application of the regulations and rules that create additional hardship, stress and frustration for people on social assistance.

There are a number of areas covered in the Commissioners’ Discussion Paper, however, that should be approached with more caution as communities start to prepare their input to the consultation process.

Extending the Notion of “Reasonable Expectations”. The Commissioners are strongly suggesting an employment-focused reform of the social assistance system, which establishes “reasonable expectations” on the recipient with respect to participation in the labour market. Poverty Free Ontario contends that there should also be a “reasonable expectation” for the provincial government to provide social assistance benefits at a level that allows recipients to meet the basic costs of the necessities of life and to live with some measure of health and dignity.

With respect to expectations about employment at the low end of the labour market, Poverty Free Ontario suggests further that the Commissioners should also point to the “reasonable expectations” of:

The provincial government to ensure that the basic minimum wage enables an earner working full-year, full-time to live above the poverty line; and

Employers to recognize that in addition to meeting the economic test of a fair return on capital for conducting a successful business, that they also have a responsibility to meet the “social test” of paying a basic minimum wage that assures an employee working full-year, full-time lives above poverty.

Perpetuating the Myth of the “Welfare Wall”. Unfortunately, the Discussion Paper promotes the notion of the “welfare wall”, expressing the need to “deliver a benefit structure that provides an adequate level of support, without creating barriers to work – barriers that discourage people from seeking work because it may not pay enough in income and benefits.” (p. 4)

Poverty Free Ontario has challenged the legitimacy of the “welfare wall” contentions as not being founded on any empirical evidence. The Discussion Paper carefully presents the issue as “ensuring people are better off working” and states that this challenge suggests the need for “difficult trade-offs” between the interests of social assistance recipients and low wage workers – a perpetuation of the pitting of the working poor (deserving poor) against the welfare recipient (undeserving poor).

The Discussion Paper then presents three approaches to this dilemma:

Allowing the recipient to keep a portion of his/her benefits and related services and top up their income with employment earnings until the person leaves the system, judged in the Paper as unfair to low wage working people.

Setting benefit levels below the low wage job rates so that recipients will see that they are “better off working”, which conflicts with the notion of income adequacy.

Providing some benefits to all low income people whether on social assistance or working such as the Ontario Child Benefit (e.g. a housing benefit).

A fourth option presented by the Commissioners as “outside the mandate of our review but within the broader context of income security – looks at questions around what work should pay, and raises issues related to ‘living wages’ and access to prescription drug and other benefits from employers.” (p.4)

As stated earlier with respect to a basic minimum wage, Poverty Free Ontario agrees that the issue of what work should pay is critical to ending working poverty, and is unclear why the Commissioners put this limit on their income security review mandate, which they otherwise interpret fairly broadly.

With respect to the first three approaches in the Discussion Paper, Poverty Free Ontario contends that the existing social assistance system can be used now to improve adequacy significantly starting with the introduction of the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement. Given the intolerably low current benefit levels, allowing recipients who do find work to keep their employment earnings until their earnings reach the poverty line for their family situation is the only path of decency and dignity. There need be no conflict with the interests of low income workers if a similar path toward gradually increasing the basic minimum wage to enable the full-time, full-year worker to make earnings above the poverty line (Poverty Free Ontario recommends 10% above the LIM-AT based on a $12.50 hourly rate in 2014 achieved in three annual 75 cent increments starting in 2012).

The Inadequacy and Risks of a Housing Benefit Approach. Poverty Free Ontario remains concerned that the framing of the three possible approaches to the benefit structure in the Discussion Paper favours a housing benefit over any significant increases in the direction of adequacy for social assistance rates. Poverty Free Ontario would support a full housing benefit that is available to all low income households paying more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs. Current proposals under consideration do not satisfy that requirement as far as Poverty Free Ontario can determine.

Plus, the development and implementation of a housing benefit with satisfactory coverage of the low income population in need will take some time, while social assistance recipients continue to live in deep poverty for lack of any rate increases since 1995. The Discussion Paper continues the Ontario Government’s misrepresentation of the cost of living adjustments to benefits since 2004 as “rate increases”, when in fact they were increases for inflation and not increases in the actual real income to recipients (p. 11). The 1% cost of living adjustments in social assistance in the last two budgets have not equalled the actual 2% rate of inflation in 2010-11.

Another major caution about a housing benefit as an alternative to setting adequate benefit rates is the same kind of “restructuring” that occurred when the OCB was introduced in 2008 while the rate for parents on social assistance was cut as well as their winter clothing and back-to-school allowances. Social assistance recipients will likely be subject to loss of the shelter allowance portion of their basic benefit if the housing benefit is introduced for all low income people through similar rate “restructuring”. Will this be one of the “difficult trade-offs”?

‘We’re just not cutting it for people living in poverty’

YORK REGION – Poverty is finally coming out of the closet, York Region Food Network program co-ordinator Yvonne Kelly told social service activists and advocates attending the Human Dignity For All: Working For a Poverty-Free Ontario symposium yesterday.

Creating awareness, igniting political will and advancing a policy agenda will support the goal of reducing and eventually eliminating destitution in our communities by 2020, she said.

The gathering at the Aurora Public Library, presented by the Social Planning Network of Ontario and sponsored by its regional council, the Food Network and other stakeholders, is a prime example of how discussion leads to action, Ms Kelly said.

“We want to bring everyone to an understanding of what a poverty-free Ontario could look like,” she said.

“It’s about galvanizing and bringing people together. There’s more impact and momentum by working collaboratively.”

Planning network co-ordinator Peter Clutterbuck lauded York Region’s anti-poverty efforts, citing the region as having one of the strongest social planning councils.

His colleague and keynote speaker Marvyn Novick, a social science professor at Ryerson University, agreed, suggesting the region’s work on poverty reduction is encouraging.

The poverty line for one adult is $18,582. A single adult on Ontario Works receives $7,352 per year, a gap of more than $11,000. A single parent with one child hits the poverty line at $26,279, but receives $16,683 in Ontario Works support — a deficit of just under $10,000.

Living in deep poverty means tens of thousands of Ontario adults and children experience chronic cycles of hunger and hardship each month when money runs out for basic necessities, he said.

Having a job doesn’t necessarily help, he said. Low pay keeps many trapped in poverty. One third of all Ontario children living in poverty in 2008 came from families where parents worked full time.

The eradication of poverty is premised on policies focusing on three key areas, Mr. Novick said.

To end deep poverty, social assistance needs to be upgraded. To stem working poverty, basic living wages must be enhanced. To ensure food security a full housing benefit must be phased in.

He advocates for an immediate $100 per month healthy food supplement for all adults on social assistance.

Poverty is political, he said. Industrialized countries with high levels of wealth also have the highest levels of poverty and disparities. The Ontario government’s commitment to reducing child poverty ends in 2013, he said. Accordingly, it’s imperative to have poverty front and centre on the provincial election agenda this October.

Ms Kelly agreed.

“We can’t afford not to address poverty,” she said.

York Region Social Planning Council co-chairperson Pat Taylor said efforts to ease the plight of the marginalized need to speed up.

“We’re just not cutting it for people living in poverty,” she said. “This event underlines the urgency of this message. By increasing peoples’ understanding, we hope to create action and strategies that will work.”

In timely tandem with the symposium was the Food Network’s release of Hunger in the Midst of Prosperity: The Need for Food Banks in York Region: 2011.

Last year, regional food banks provided sustenance for more than 52,000 clients, a 20-per-cent spike from 2008, the report notes. More than four in 10 adults said they go hungry at least once a week. Among children surveyed, 17 per cent go hungry once per week.

“The pace of change around poverty reduction seems painfully slow,” she said. “As Canadians, we should no longer be speaking with pride about our social safety net. Too many people in our communities are forced to use food banks to get enough to eat.”

The report identifies the struggles of living on low income. With a high proportion of income going to housing, people juggle funds to try to stay afloat and food becomes a discretionary expense, she said.

Social planning councils have a long history since the 1930s of advocating for low income people, whether welfare recipients or working poor. In recent years, the SPNO and its organizational members have assumed a lead role in urging the Ontario Government to adopt a poverty reduction strategy for Ontario. Specifically,

In the summer-fall of 2007, SPNO mobilized cross-community support for poverty reduction in Ontario and released a report on “Ontario as the Child Poverty Centre of Canada”, which prompted Premier McGuinty prior to the October 2007 election to commit to the development of a poverty reduction strategy within one year of his Government’s re-election.

Since 2009, working with community leadership in Toronto and across the province, SPNO has focused on the Put Food in the Budget Campaign (PFIB), promoting the adoption of a benefit increase of $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on OW and ODSP as the first step towards adequacy in benefit levels to enable all Ontarians to live with health and dignity.

2011 Provincial Election Year

The Ontario Government’s current commitment to poverty reduction focusing on a 25% reduction in child poverty ends in 2013. Since 2011 is a provincial election year, now is the time to begin a public discussion about where Government action needs to go to move from a partial and measured commitment to reducing child poverty to a full commitment to the eradication of all poverty in Ontario by the year 2020.

In May 2010, the SPNO leadership set policy development and cross-community mobilization for a poverty-free Ontario as a major provincial and community level priority for SPNO and its local and regional organizational members in 2011.

Mission

An Ontario free of poverty will be reflected in healthy, inclusive communities with a place of dignity for everyone and the essential conditions of well-being for all.

The mission of Poverty Free Ontario is to eliminate divided communities in which large numbers of adults and children live in chronic states of material hardship, poor health and social exclusion.

Securing a Legacy Commitment

2017 will be the 150th anniversary of Canada as a country and Ontario as a province. Poverty Free Ontario will ask the political leadership of all parties in the 2011 provincial election to commit publicly to a “legacy commitment” for the Sesquicentennial. That legacy commitment would be for the provincial government of whatever political stripe to have adopted and implemented a comprehensive plan by 2017 resulting in the eradication of poverty in Ontario by 2020. This plan should move beyond poverty reduction targets set by the current Government for children in 2013 to bring all children and adults out of poverty by the year 2020.

PFO Strategy for 2011

A. A Policy Agenda for a Poverty Free Ontario

A new Policy Agenda for a Poverty Free Ontario would build on SPNO’s policy development work in 2008. Essentially, policy proposals will be developed and advanced in three key areas for the eradication of poverty in Ontario:

The Policy Agenda would link the strategy for eradication of poverty with a good quality of life for all Ontarians in order to build public and political support. It must demonstrate that the interests of the poor and the broad middle class are indivisible.

B. Critical Milestones

Simultaneously with the framing and promotion of a Policy Agenda for a Poverty Free Ontario, there are specific actions and resource allocations that can and must be taken now and over the next year or more to kick-start a longer term commitment to eradicating poverty. These actions constitute Critical Milestones that would:

address immediate hardships that people are experiencing now (i.e. the HFS);

identify key decision dates for the implementation of poverty eradication measures to achieve the goal by 2020; and

demonstrate serious political commitment to poverty elimination beyond the perpetual future promises that have prevailed to date.

The Put Food in the Budget Campaign advocating for a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on social assistance is an immediately doable action. This measure could be implemented as part of the Government’s commitment to Social Assistance Review, which at the moment is focusing on long-term overhaul of the income security system rather than action possible immediately using the existing social assistance system.

Proposing specific measures for ensuring income adequacy beyond the first step of the HFS, Poverty Free Ontario would constitute an important policy development link to the immediate social assistance increase that the PFIB campaign is advocating.

GUELPH — Poverty activists turned a classroom into a war room this week, plotting their return to the fray of electoral politics after a few years in the wilderness.

About 60 people came out to the community forum on poverty policy in Rozanski Hall at the University of Guelph where three panellists highlighted concerns facing low-income Canadians.

“Change comes from the collective energy of people in a room like this,” said political science professor Byron Sheldrick, the forum’s MC. “They don’t have to listen if we don’t speak.”

The event served as an informal launch of a local effort to put poverty back on the agenda. Right-wing cost-cutters triumphed in the recent federal election as well as Toronto’s 2010 mayoral race.

“Poverty can only be reduced and eliminated when there’s a political will,” Brice Balmer, one of the panellists, said. “It’s time for that political will to show.”

The panellists were unanimous in their support of a $100 food allowance for people on welfare.

“We keep on hearing we can’t afford it. There’s not enough money,” Mark Woodnutt, a co-ordinator with the Stop Community Food Centre, said. “But we know that’s not the truth. We know there is money.”

The 2011 provincial budget includes $4 billion in corporate and capital tax cuts primarily for banks and insurance companies, Woodnutt pointed out, adding since the government of former premier Mike Harris took power in 1995, social assistance rates have been almost cut in half.

“These are conscious, political choices to keep people in poverty.”

Currently, a single adult on Ontario Works gets about $592 a month to cover rent, heating, water, clothes, personal items and food, Woodnutt said. “When it doesn’t add up, people need to make impossible choices.” Since food is a flexible budget item, it’s often the first thing to be sacrificed, he added.

Panellist Peter Clutterbuck, co-ordinator of the Social Planning Network of Ontario, outlined his organization’s campaign for a poverty-free Ontario.

He said raising the minimum wage to $12.50 from the current $10.25 and ending the clawback of Ontario Works earnings would help keep everyone in the province out of poverty. Of social assistance, he said we must “stop degrading it” and “stop demonizing the people who get it.”

Balmer, a minister with the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition, said Canada’s middle class has stagnated for decades while the wealthiest have grown wealthier. “We now have a growing gap between the rich and the average,” he said.

An underground economy exists where low-income seniors buy dentures retrieved from funeral homes, Balmer said, and a Kitchener man required ambulance service 157 times because of chronic, poverty-related health problems.

“Think what that costs,” Balmer said. “We need to change how we spend the health care dollars.”

The event was organized by the Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination. Coordinator Randalin Ellery said she hopes the task force will reach more voters and politicians this time around.

“The federal election came up so quickly, there wasn’t a lot of time to prepare,” she said.

Guelph MPP Liz Sandals has been active on the task force, Ellery said, adding she hopes whoever is elected continues to meet with the group. “It is a great spot for a dialogue,” she said.